Five Portraits

  “Name?”

  “Whatever,” the cloud agreed crossly.

  “Yes, you heard your name,” Astrid said. “I killed a troll, and now want to rescue his captives, but they are magically locked in. Can you arrange to get Pewter here? He should be able to handle this.”

  “Why not just pick the lock?”

  “I don’t know how. Do you?”

  The cloud expanded and formed into a sultry female figure with barely enough clothing to avoid freaking out any males in the vicinity. Fortunately there were none at the moment. “Oh, sure. I pick my nose; a lock should be cleaner.”

  “Then do it, please.”

  Metria’s finger went to her nose.

  “The lock!” Astrid snapped.

  “Oh. Why didn’t you say so?”

  Ginger nodded slowly. She was catching on why this was likely to be complicated.

  The demoness examined the lock. She put her finger to it. There was a crackle as a spark jumped, and she jerked back. “This is a troll lock!”

  “Yes. Can you pick it?”

  “Not without being electrocuted. Only trolls can handle troll locks.”

  “Could Pewter handle it?”

  Metria nodded. “He might. Too bad he’s not here.”

  “I have a phenomenal idea,” Astrid said patiently. “Why don’t you pop back to the camp and tell him about this, and ask him to come here to deal with it?”

  “What kind of idea?”

  “Fantastic, extraordinary, remarkable, superlative, spectacular—”

  “Grate?”

  Astrid was taken aback. “Grate?”

  “Maybe I misspelled it.”

  “Great!” Astrid said. “Yes, that’s it. You’re a genius.”

  Metria looked slightly suspicious that she was being mocked. “Technically I’m closer to a genie than a genius, but it will do. I’ll go fetch Pewter.” She popped off.

  “Thank you, screwball,” Astrid said to the dissipating smoke.

  “I heard that!” the last wisp said.

  “Oh, bleep!” Astrid swore.

  “We have heard of Metria,” Ginger said. “She’s always mischief.”

  “She’s a member of our party,” Astrid said. “She does mean well, in her fashion. It just can be a trial at times working with her.”

  “We appreciate that.”

  Soon the cloud reappeared. “Tiara is on her way.”

  “Tiara? But it’s Pewter we need here at the moment.”

  “But he can’t fly. Tiara can.”

  Astrid counted mentally to ten. It hardly helped. “I wonder whether she will be willing to go back to fetch Pewter.”

  “No need.”

  “No need?”

  “Superfluous, pointless, redundant—”

  “Why is there no need to go back to fetch Pewter?”

  “Because she’s already bringing him.”

  Astrid counted from eleven to twenty. That didn’t help much either. “Thank you.”

  “Always glad to help,” the demoness said sunnily.

  In due course Tiara appeared. Her wild fair hair was gathered and wound around her midsection, its flotation supporting her like an inner tube. She had fins on her hands and feet, and was efficiently swimming through the air, as she had learned how to do in the past month. But she seemed to be alone. Astrid kept her mouth shut, afraid to inquire.

  Tiara circled over the forest, spied them, and spiraled gently down, her skirt flapping in the breeze. She landed fairly neatly. She had bright blue eyes, a red cherry mouth, nice features, and a firm slender body. “Hello, Astrid,” she said brightly as her hair shortened and formed back into her namesake tiara. “We wondered what you were up to.”

  “I had a run-in with a hungry troll. Now we need to unlock the troll’s gate to let out his captives.”

  “Ah. That must be why you need Com Pewter.”

  “Yes. He has a way with locks.”

  Tiara removed her hand-fins, reached into her small backpack and fished out what looked like a potato chip with the letter C printed on one side, and the letter P on the other side. She brought it to her mouth and kissed it. “Wake, CP.”

  The chip expanded, forming into an android with a face painted on the front of the head. It was of course a computer chip. “Thank you, maiden.”

  “For the ride?” Tiara asked.

  “That, too.”

  Astrid smiled. Theoretically the machine was immune to the charms of pretty girls, but that was evidently changing. Com Pewter was no prince, but the kiss had revived him regardless.

  “Here is the lock,” Astrid told Pewter, indicating the barred gate. “Can you open it?”

  Pewter considered the gate without touching it. “This is a sophisticated setup. The lock is protected by an invisible magnetic shell that will short-circuit me if I touch it. The troll surely had it keyed to his identity alone. We need to eliminate the shell first.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “One good bash by a nonmetallic object should do it.”

  “Then I think we need Ease and Kandy.”

  “We do,” Pewter agreed.

  “I will fetch them,” Tiara agreed. Her hair grew long again. She wrapped it around her middle, donned the hand-fins, and took off. There was almost but not quite a flash of panties before she leveled out and swam forward. She was still learning to manage such details. Trousers would have solved that problem, but Tiara considered them unfeminine. Soon she was gone.

  “How come a common garden-variety troll has such a fancy security system?” Metria asked.

  “I can answer that,” Ginger responded from inside the cave. “My friends and I were out foraging for flowers, and there were some pretty ones in the glade. We didn’t realize that it was the troll’s trap. He pounced on us and we were helpless to resist. He told us that he had made a deal with his trollway-building cousins to provide one or more pretty girls to serve their needs. When they come to collect, any of us who survive will be given to them to serve as slaves. We hoped they would come soon, because they can’t be worse than Truculent.”

  Astrid did not like the smell of this. “What kind of slaves?”

  “We don’t know, but we can guess. The difference is that they probably won’t cook and eat us, after. They’re more civilized.”

  Ideas of civilization evidently differed. Still, the trollway trolls were a higher class, and surely better to deal with. “Well, that deal is terminated,” Astrid said. “We’ll free you so you can go home.”

  “We appreciate that.”

  But now there was a heavy tramping along the hidden trail. Trolls!

  “Let’s hope for their sake that they are reasonable,” Pewter said to Astrid. “If not, you know what to do.”

  “I do,” she agreed grimly, touching her dark glasses.

  The trolls came to stand before the cave. There were three of them, each uglier than the others. “What have we here?” their evident leader demanded.

  Astrid stepped forward. “Let’s exchange introductions. I am Astrid. Truculent Troll attacked me and I had to defend myself, as you may have seen in the glade.”

  “We did,” the troll said. “I am Truman Troll and these are my henchmen. How did you manage to overcome Truculent?”

  “I am a basilisk in human form.”

  “He knows better than to mess with a basilisk!”

  “He did not give me much of a chance to clarify my nature. He was too busy clarifying his own five-stage process.”

  Truman nodded. “That does sound like him. Why have you not long-since departed this vicinity?”

  “We mean to free Truculent’s captives so they can go home. They have suffered more than enough already.”

  “Those captives devolve to us, now that Truculent is de
ad. We have uses for them.”

  “You shall not have them.”

  “This is troll business. There are precedents.”

  “It became my business when Truculent attacked me. Any deals he may have made ended with his death.”

  “We do not agree. The terms of the deal extend to the heirs and assigns.”

  “We do not agree with your interpretation.”

  “Do we agree that an altercation between our kind and your kind could become mutually difficult?”

  “Our kinds have normally left each other alone,” Astrid agreed.

  Truman exchanged a glance or three with his companions, then stared down at her. “Then it seems we have a problem.” He closed his massive fists as the two henchmen donned hoods that would prevent her from staring directly at their faces. That would provide them only partial protection, and inhibit their vision. Still, it increased their chances of dispatching her before she dispatched them. It seemed they had clashed with basilisks before.

  Astrid touched her glasses. She could handle trolls, even experienced ones. But it was chancy; she could not be sure of taking out all three before one got to her with a club. They were of course aware that they would take losses. “I hope it can be amicably resolved.”

  Truman smiled without humor. “So do I. Do you have a proposal?”

  “I do,” Pewter said.

  Truman glanced at him. “And you are?”

  “Com Pewter, a smart machine allied with Astrid. You do not know my capabilities.”

  “Oh, we do, Pewter,” Truman said. “Your iconoclasm is well known. But your power is limited to your immediate vicinity.”

  “You are standing on the verge of that vicinity. You will enter it if you clash with Astrid.”

  Truman nodded. “Excellent point. What is your proposal?”

  “Surely the goblins have some troll captives, saved for similar purposes as you save goblins. How about a captive exchange?”

  “We prefer a good old-fashioned raid and heads-bashing.”

  “Which would cost you the lives of the captives, making the raid in that respect pointless.”

  “So it would, unfortunately. But goblin males, in contrast with their females, are surly brutes not much known for negotiation. We would be at war before we came to terms.”

  “Unless a basilisk served as intermediary.”

  This time the troll’s smile had humor. “Well now! That notion appeals to me. Let’s see what offers. This will require a dialogue with the captives. Shall we make a truce for this hour?”

  “Granted,” Pewter said.

  “Granted,” Astrid agreed. Trolls were dark and dangerous, but they did honor truces.

  Truman’s fists unclenched, and the henchmen’s hoods came off. They knew that machines and basilisks also honored truces.

  “May I say, Astrid, that you are one extremely fetching creature in this form,” Truman said. “It is a pleasure to be near—but not too near—you.”

  “Thank you.” At least he was polite about the idea the sight of her gave him.

  Truman squatted down to peer into the barred cave. “Goblins, we are in negotiation phase. Are there any troll captives in your home mound?”

  “Three,” Ginger said. “But we can’t say how long they will survive.”

  “They were alive when you left?”

  “Yes. But the female was stripped and tied down for the benefit of—you know.”

  “Yes. We treat captives similarly. It is to mutual advantage for us to arrange an exchange.”

  “Yes,” Ginger agreed faintly.

  The troll inspected the lock. “That’s one of ours, yes, keyed to Truculent. No one else can touch it without getting electrocuted. You have a way to deal with it?”

  “We believe so,” Pewter said. “Assistance is on the way.”

  Truman turned to Astrid. “Now let’s go see the goblins. May I offer you a lift?”

  “That is surely faster,” Astrid agreed.

  “Climb into my knapsack.”

  She got behind him and did so. Then he stood. “Remain here,” he told the henchmen. And to Astrid: “Trust, but verify.”

  “Agreed.”

  Then the troll forged into the brush, bashing out his own trail. In a remarkably brief time they reached the goblin mound.

  The goblins surged out, brandishing weapons. “Ho! Fresh meat!” their leader cried.

  “Not so,” Truman said. “I come to negotiate.”

  “Negotiate, negatiate,” the goblin said. “You were a fool to come into our power, poop for brains.”

  “I bring with me a basilisk.”

  “Nice bluff, moron! We don’t see any—” He paused.

  Astrid had changed to her natural form, gazing out and around from the knapsack, not looking at anyone directly. The goblins shrank away, well knowing that form.

  “As I was saying,” Truman said. “We have three goblin girls from your mound as captives. We will exchange them for your three troll captives. Do we have a deal?”

  “The bleep!” the goblin chief swore.

  Astrid lowered her gaze. She looked at a tied sheep they were probably saving for the evening meal. It looked her way, and fell dead.

  “Do we have a deal?” Truman repeated.

  The goblins looked at the sheep. They quailed, realizing that this was no bluff. “Deal,” the chief said, disgruntled.

  “We shall return in due course with the captives,” Truman said. “In the interim, you will bring out your captives and have them ready here. Then we will exchange.” He paused meaningfully. “Should anything go wrong, my companion might be annoyed. You wouldn’t like her when she’s annoyed.”

  The goblins quailed again. The last thing they wanted was an angry basilisk marauding through their mound.

  Truman turned and forged back through the brush. Astrid returned to her human form. “You have an effective way with words, Astrid,” he remarked.

  “Thank you.” She hadn’t said anything, but her threat of a glare had been enough. That was his point.

  When they reached the cave, Tiara was just arriving, swimming through the air with the man called Ease on her back as if riding a dolphin. Her hair had to be struggling to float them both but was managing. He waved. Then he did a double take. “Trolls!” He drew his trusty wooden board and brandished it threateningly.

  “We are in truce, unfortunately,” Truman said. “But after our business here is done, if you wish to try your board against my club, I will be glad to accommodate you.”

  “He’s right,” Astrid called. “We made a truce. We are friends for this hour. No fighting.”

  “Oh, bleep,” Ease said, lowering the board as Tiara landed. He jumped off her back.

  “Here is the situation,” Pewter told Ease. “I need to unlock this lock to free the goblin captives, but it is protected by an invisible shell. Kindly bash apart that shell.”

  “Sure,” Ease said. It was his talent to make things easy. He swung the board at the lock. There was a sharp crack, and a small explosion of sparks, and the formerly invisible fragments of the shell dropped to the ground.

  “Thank you,” Pewter said. “Now let me concentrate. This may take a little time.”

  “We have made a deal to exchange captives, goblins for trolls,” Astrid said. “It’s a situation I blundered into, but it is working out.”

  Ease turned away. He touched the board to the ground, and it became a lovely young woman with dark eyes and luxuriant dark hair. “And hello Kandy,” Astrid said.

  Both the goblins and the trolls were startled. “What just happened here?” Truman asked.

  “I have the ability to change forms between human and board,” Kandy explained. “Just as Astrid changes between human and basilisk. When I’m the board, I make sure Ease’s aim is goo
d and his strike effective.” She rubbed her neck. “Though I must admit that charge on the shell gave me a jolt.”

  “It occurs to me that you folk are no ordinary group,” Truman said.

  “We’re a special mission to eliminate the last of the anti-pun virus,” Kandy explained. “To that end we have been granted certain additional abilities. We are a bit unusual.”

  “So it seems,” the troll agreed, glancing at Astrid, Kandy, and Tiara. “Are all the females of your party as pretty as the three of you?”

  Demoness Metria appeared. “Yes.”

  “And a demoness!” Truman said. “The surprises keep coming.”

  “Surprises can be fun,” Metria said, inhaling so that her decolletage threatened to tear loose and float away.

  “I am curious how a basilisk came to associate with a human party, and a demoness, a machine, a girl who floats on her hair, and a board woman,” Truman said. “Not that it’s any of my business, which makes it even more intriguing.”

  “We’re curious too,” Ginger said. “It’s not our business either.”

  “Well, that would be a chapter-length personal narrative,” Astrid said. “I wouldn’t want to bore you to distraction with a dull literary flashback.”

  “As it happens, this lock threatens to require a chapter-length effort,” Pewter said.

  “So we’re stuck for the time anyway,” Ginger said.

  Truman and his henchmen settled down on the ground. “Bore us,” he said.

  The others settled similarly. What could she do? Astrid began to speak.

  Chapter 2:

  Flashback

  Astrid Basilisk-Cockatrice was the daughter of anonymous parents who had wiled away a dull minute by generating her on a warm compost pile, then gone their own deadly ways, never to see her or each other again. Why should they? It was their nature to hate all other creatures, including their own kind. They had fought over possession of the resting site, and finally settled it by sharing it for that brief purpose. In minutes they were both days away and not looking back, leaving her to hatch alone. She had to fend for herself from the outset, as all female basilisks and male cockatrices did. She had no particular difficulty, as her very nearness wilted plants and stunned animals, and her direct stare into any creature’s eyes was instantly lethal. So she had plenty of spoiling food to sustain her, and was never in any real danger.